Going to ACTFL?

November 6 meeting 3:30-4:30
Location: IS French/Chinese room 182
Agenda

15 minutes- only Upper School- TLC discussion (the norms/schedule and places)

TLC norms

possible tutors

20 minutes - All- share feedback from Mission/Philosophy statement (sent in email  mission/philosophy  and then in the meeting partner talk to whole group) 

What do we uphold? 

From curriculum committee share- discussion on 50%?

as a minimum for major projects, tests

(report grade on academic notice accurately but in gradebook

shows as a 50%?) 

5 minute transition 

Announcements: Antonietta-ACTFL, SYA: Nov. 19th Enrique Granados on

campus in the morning, Governor's School candidates, anything else?

20 minutes- All team time breakout

ideas: 

Spanish- US review electives proposals ideas, MS/IS Atlas review

Latin- Atlas work and vocabulary development, class visits

French- accommodations and French SYA visitor, Atlas

Chinese- Integrated Chinese text development, Atlas

November 22-24, 2019
Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC
801 Mount Vernon Place NW
Washington, DC 20001
(Pre-convention Workshops – November 21, 2019)

ACTFL 2019

CI-FOCUSED SESSIONS

The In(put)s and Out(put)s of Comprehensible Input 

Input is the “in” thing in language education. Giving great, comprehensible input is the best we can give our language students. This input gives students the foundation they need to become part of the world’s community of bilinguals (or MULTIlinguals). The tricky part is knowing when and how to anticipate language production. In this session, participants will learn about ACTFL’s proficiency levels and will explore units that provide a steady stream of essential input while encouraging students to output when they’re ready. Participants will actively engage in activities, readings, and tricks for unit design that they can take back to their classrooms on Monday!

Read more here.

15 Easy Peer Teaching Strategies to Help Students

Peer tutoring activities — whether occasional or frequent — can deliver research-backed benefits to both the student-tutee and student-tutor, not to mention teachers.  Read more

ACTFL ASSESSMENTS

ACTFL RELEASES ASSESSMENT TOPICS FOR 2020

ACTFL has released the content topics for the 2020 ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages (AAPPL), which is available in 13 languages. The newly released topics allow instructors to create classroom and homework-based opportunities for students to perform across all modes of communication before participating in the AAPPL in the spring of 2020. AAPPL is an assessment of proficiency and performance designed to complement classroom-based language learning. As such, ACTFL provides the general 2020 topics so that learners may have the opportunity to practice “tasks within familiar contexts” (ACTFL Performance Descriptors for Language Learners, 2012, p. 5). Teachers are encouraged to use these topics to create classroom and homework-based opportunities to facilitate learners’ practice across all modes of communication.

FUTURE TEACHERS

Inaugural Class of Lead with Languages Teacher Scholars

The Lead with Languages Teacher Scholarship Program awards merit-based funding to graduating high school seniors committed to pursuing the language teaching profession in languages other than English. This autumn, the inaugural class of ten Scholars are headed to university campuses across the United States to begin their journeys to becoming language educators. When asked about their motivation to teach, the Scholars pointed to goals both personal and global: "Language is about more than communication. It connects you to the world around you. Learning and teaching both connect people to each other, deepening our understandings of each other, and bringing us just a little bit closer to a just and peaceful world." Scholarship recipients receive an award of $1,500 per academic year which may be renewed three times for a cumulative total of $6,000. Upon graduation and entry into the teaching field, the Scholars will also receive 1-year complimentary ACTFL membership, including access to the ACTFL Mentoring Program. Field Notes Building a Global Classroom Learn how the creation of a global math classroom supports students as they live and learn abroad.  Watch here Fall 2019 Photo Essay Take a visual tour around the world with the SYA Class of 2020 in this photo essay featuring highlights from the first weeks abroad.  Read more Launching the Practicum The SYA Practicum is a first-of-its-kind course allowing students to engage in competency-based education in an authentic environment. Read more

Sarah Erickson: SYA Blogger 

No Baby Steps to Studying Abroad

SYTA and independent market research provider BONARD launched the Student Travel Business Barometer, earlier this year. This survey collected data from 94 leading tour operators spanning 21 countries—representing more than 1 million students!

Among the key findings: More than half of those responding reported increases in the number of students traveling in Q1 2019, compared to Q1 2018. This, in turn, translated into larger average group size.

View Executive Summary

For Spanish teachers: link to show- dates in November

SPECIAL TONY AWARD® RECIPIENT
JOHN LEGUIZAMO

"WHEN YOU’RE CONTENDING WITH AN ENTIRE COUNTRY THAT BELIEVES THAT CINCO DE MAYO IS, LIKE, THE LATINO 4TH OF JULY, YOU KNOW YOU’VE GOT SOME EDUCATIN’ TO DO. JOHN LEGUIZAMO’S LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS IS THE BROADWAY SHOW THAT WE NEED IN A TIME WHEN ASYLUM SEEKERS SIT IN CAGES AT THE BORDER AND MOST AMERICANS WOULD NAME PITBULL AS THE MOST IMPORTANT LATINO OF OUR TIME. LEGUIZAMO’S MEANINGFUL PAEAN TO THE STRUGGLE AND HISTORY OF THE LATINX PEOPLE IS FULL OF TONGUE-IN-CHEEK ASIDES AND FASCINATING HISTORICAL TIDBITS. LOOK UP HIS SYLLABUS FOR THE PROGRAM ONLINE (FULL OF INTERESTING READING MATERIAL) AND PREPARE YOURSELF FOR A NIGHT OF EYE-OPENING HISTORICAL NARRATIVE." (DALLAS OBSERVER)

"I GREW UP WITHOUT SEEING PEOPLE WHO LOOKED LIKE ME ON SCREEN, ON STAGE, OR IN TEXTBOOKS. LATINX PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KEPT OUTTA THE CONVERSATION FOR CENTURIES, AND IT’S BOUT TIME YA’LL HEAR WHAT WE GOTTA SAY! NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO COME OUT AND FINALLY GET YOUR DEGREE FROM A GHETTO SCHOLAR!" -JOHN LEGUIZAMO

More songs in the classroom:  Celebrate Languages French, Spanish and Chinese

LANGUAGE CLUB OBSERVES DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS Last Wednesday, a group of seventh and eighth graders participated in the IS Language Club, which featured Spanish this month. Students cycled through stations to learn about the Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos). They made sugar skulls out of marshmallows, crafted tissue-paper cempasuchil (marigold) flowers, and colored calacas (skulls). INTEREST MEETING: SPAIN AND MOROCCO Join us for an interest meeting about an exciting travel opportunity: a trip to Spain and Morocco for ninth and tenth graders, which will take place June 11-21, 2020. The meeting will be held in Room U327 on October 30, 6:00 to 7:00 pm.

Let's see our thinking!

October 16 th meeting agenda UIS Chinese room E214
Please note... only US teachers until 4pm and then whole group from 4-4:30

3:30 US Continue TLC discussion (Ariston for 10 minutes and discussion to follow)
4:00 All transition and Atlas work
Please bring computers

Click on the blue links.
Startalk Activities in the three modes Excellent free resource!
What is Startalk?
STARTALK’s mission is to increase the number of Americans learning, speaking, and teaching critical need foreign languages by offering students (K–16) and teachers of these languages creative and engaging summer experiences that strive to exemplify best practices in language education and in language teacher development, forming an extensive community of practice that seeks continuous improvement in such criteria as outcomes-driven program design, standards-based curriculum planning, learner-centered approaches, excellence in selection and development of materials, and meaningful assessment of outcomes.

Charlala.com is a website created by Chris Hammer, a world language curriculum specialist and a grade 2-8 Spanish teacher. Charlala.com has several features but the one I'll focus on in this post is the DrawRoom with Game Mode and Conversation Mode. (Other features of the site allow the teacher to create a video in which the teacher records himself asking a question and then sets a time limit for how long the student has to answer the recorded questions, somewhat similar to what CLEAR by Michigan State University used to have.)
Read more

Say Hello to FluentKey 

https://fluentkey.com/

Bring your class to life with interactive videos. Now in Spanish, French, Chinese and English.

Sketchnoting Resources for Teachers
Making learning visual- 
Click for powerful ideas!

Rachel S. Smith used to get in trouble in school for Sketchnoting. Now she does it for a living, Sketchnoting during group meetings. It helps the group see what their work in a way that's not normally possible in a meeting, it lets them see the big picture together and make connections between pieces of information that come up at different times in a meeting.

Rachel makes the case that "when you use visual note-taking, you have to listen to what's being said, you have to really hear it, and you have to understand it. Because that's the only way you're going to come up with an image to connect what you're hearing with what you already know". Using Sketchnoting "creates a personal visual memory aid that they can study from later".

Starting at 6:35, Rachel tells the story of how visual note-taking worked for her niece and how it got her out of a detention. 


Google Earth brings you languages!
Users of Google Earth are now able to hear over 50 Indigenous language speakers from across the globe saying words and simple phrases and even singing traditional songs.  Read more


Making Languages our Business

Read the full ACTFL report: For U.S. employers, the demand for foreign language skills is greater than ever before. Whether it’s in the boardroom, in the field, with customers and partners, or on social media, companies today are increasingly more likely to conduct business in a language other than English. Consequently, a command in multiple languages is a valuable asset for U.S. students and employees—not only in boosting their marketability in the workplace, but in helping them thrive in a global economy. Read more

For a short summary, look here. A new survey, released today, calls attention to the serious foreign language skills gap in the U.S. workforce. Languages Critical to US Employers

ELEVATE courses

Upcoming courses and conference presentations happening at Elevate.

• We have launched a new, credit-bearing online course! This is an incredibly low-cost (~ $5/week!) way to engage in high-quality professional development in a non-overwhelming way. It is a one-year course; we are accepting participants in the 2019-2020 cohort until Nov. 1. is delivered in biweekly modules that average only 20 minutes + alternate week resources that connect to the modules. The title is Teaching with Culturally Responsive Comprehensible Input and we have our very own title and course number with University of the Pacific; 1-4 graduate-level credits available. To register and learn more, go to elevateci.com. 

• Early-bird registration is open through October 15 for our monthly job-embedded in-person professional development series Teaching with Comprehensible Input: The Why, What and How (level 1); and Teaching with Comprehensible Input: Taking Your Skills to the Next Level—Building a Culturally Responsive Classroom (level 2). You can get more information and see which level is right for you, and to register, by going to: https://www.elevateeducationconsulting.com/educator-training-1/ (Graduate-level credits available)
• We are excited to be presenting at TCI Maine later this month. We’ve been asked to share TWO presentations in plenary sessions: Building Diversity-Positive Characters in TPRS Stories and Creating a Cultural Treasure Trove: Teaching Culture without Stereotyping. 
• We’ll be at ACTFL this year! Stop by the CI Posse exhibit table at ACTFL to see us (we’ll be doing small presentations there on Friday afternoon & Saturday morning on Teaching with Culturally Responsive CI and Small Change, Big Impact: The Power of Adjectives. We’ll also be doing an official ACTFL presentation Sunday morning at 8 am on Making Authentic Resources Comprehensible in the Early Levels. 

We are looking forward to providing you solid, sustained support this year as you continue on your culturally responsive CI journey. 

Vista News:
Hi all,

With back to school in full swing, I wanted to send out a reminder that I'm here to provide any support you may need or help fulfill your sampling needs. I’m excited to partner with you to provide the best instructional materials that will empower you to succeed. My goal is to understand the needs of you and your students while providing programs that offer: A seamless integration of text and technology Engaging authentic cultural resources Superior customer support Please take a moment to explore our catalog and let me know if you would like to sample any materials for your classroom!

Explore the catalog

Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions you may have, I'm here to help! Warmest Regards,

Learn more about Cheryl JUNIORS SETTLE INTO ZARAGOZA LIFE Three Potomac juniors are participating in the School Year Abroad (SYA)-Zaragoza program in Spain this year. Sarah Erickson, Lucy Goldberg, and Sophie Tolson have been doing fieldwork activities to get to know their way around the city and meet people at SYA. Outside of school, the juniors have been visiting pueblos, cheering at host brothers’ soccer games, and exploring museums – one of which displays some impressive archeological remains of imperial Rome. They also attended a soccer game for the official city team, Real Zaragoza. The above picture, which features Sophie (left) and Sarah, was taken on the bridge in front of the Basilica del Pilar. Pictures from SYA France- Rennes Isabelle and Cindy on their summer enrichment program Bienvenue Dans la classe Détails Professeures Paw Prints! TRIP TO GALA THEATRE On Friday, the AP Spanish language and AP Spanish literature classes visited the GALA Hispanic Theatre in DC to see a production of the Spanish baroque masterpiece La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream). Students enjoyed this fast-paced, dynamic play that raises questions on the nature of reality, our perceptions, and the role of destiny in our lives. ¡Fantástico!